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Happiness is breaking out

9 October 2018

At the University of Waikato the serious business of happiness and wellbeing is thriving in teaching and research.

It is following an international trend that saw Harvard’s Positive Psychology paper become the University’s most popular course of all time. In New Zealand you know when the Treasury gets involved things have become quite serious indeed, so the work to define wellbeing measures this year has been pivotal. The happiness of the nation is being gauged, ahead of the Government’s Budget 2019, with its wellbeing focus.

The 4th Biennial Conference in Positive Psychology Positive Psychology in New Zealand: Spreading its Wings is being hosted at the University of Waikato in November, bringing key speakers and thinkers on the topic together in one place.

Waikato’s Associate Professor Robert Isler says positive psychology is a new pathway, and perceptions are changing. “Happiness was considered shallow, and people believed that real research should be on deficits and negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression. But now we’re moving to strength and flourishing, and not just in clinical populations.”

Dr Robert Isler.

His Positive Psychology paper has gone from about 30 students last year, to more than 90 students this year. The course is flourishing and helping to develop the happiness and wellbeing field across the wider University. Dr Isler is very clear the subject should not be dumped in with the money-making industry where it is so very easy to sell things like ‘5 Steps To Happiness’. “The science of wellbeing and how to achieve it is becoming very precise. We’re looking at flourishing mental states, and concrete measures of wellbeing and resilience.” A positive equivalent of the traditional Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5), which describes and categorizes mental disorders, is being developed.

The science of wellbeing and how to achieve it is very thorough and precise. We’re looking at the question what makes life worth living, flourishing mental states, and concrete measures of wellbeing and resilience.

More on Dr Isler's research

Dr Isler has been looking at the effects of mindfulness on driving.

He realized he had spent a lot of research time looking at deficits, and doing very little on what a good driver actually is. He is asking whether driving can be a way of measuring work satisfaction and performance, and how training drivers on mindfulness can reduce risky driving on the roads. He’s also been looking at eye movement in the lab to see whether drivers who miss lots of hazards are being steered by negative rather than positive emotions.

The 4th Biennial Conference in Positive Psychology Positive Psychology in New Zealand: Spreading its Wings is being hosted at the University of Waikato in November, bringing key speakers and thinkers on the topic together in one place.

In another part of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences a collegial critique is happening. Dr Dan Weijers describes himself as a fan of positive psychology, but as a philosopher it is his role to pull theories apart and, with his students, investigate their origins and implications. He’s teaching Happiness and Wellbeing, another course that has drawn a lot of interest. Dr Weijers says that enrollments were high straight away, relative to other philosophy courses. “When I talk to people and say I’m a philosopher, they usually turn to leave. But when I said wait, I work on happiness, they come right back. Lots of people are very interested. Why wouldn’t they be?”

Dr Dan Weijers.

Defining happiness, Dr Weijers opts for the simplest version: happiness is feeling good and not feeling bad. The first thing he does in his paper is try to differentiate between happiness and wellbeing. The words are used in a myriad of ways, often interchangeably. “Wellbeing I take to mean the good life for the one living it. It is really the ultimate thing that people should want for themselves, if they care about themselves.”

Other philosophers will often define the ‘good life’ as a morally good life, or a meaningful life, or knowing the truth, having friends and appreciating beauty. Dr Weijers is asking his students to think very carefully about these ideas, and consider how they define the good life for themselves. The next challenge is to ask whether that is the same for everyone. “I give students the tools and opportunity to critique different theories, and test out various positive psychological interventions, designed to help people flourish. At the same time I get them to think critically about how positive psychology works, or is supposed to work, and the implications for the wider society.”

Back to the happiness industry, and Dr Weijers is aware of the weaknesses in positive psychology, and cautious about it being wielded in a clumsy way. ”I think we should be careful. Self-help books may be useful for some people, but now we have effectively got a science of happiness it would be a real shame if those books weren’t based on the science. Sometimes authors think they don’t need science and can just rely on magical secrets. At it’s best we can use the science of positive psychology to dispel myths, and start to more clearly define and pursue happiness and a good life.”

Dr Jordan Waiti riding a wave.

For Dr Jordan Waiti happiness is embodied in surfing. He is very connected to the physical world, and is taking his students in Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Health and Wellbeing out of the classroom and into nature with him. One of the key things he wanted to it introduce to the course was a practical component. “So we’re not just doing theory for the whole semester, we’re putting some of that theory into practice outside. We spend a day or two out at Raglan doing various activities, surfing, planting trees, organic gardening, and really getting out into the environment.”

Dr Waiti says a lot of the western philosophical and psychological approaches apply to Māori, but there are added layers. In Te Ao Māori happiness is also about having the opportunity to reaffirm identity through participating in cultural activities, and accessing areas of cultural significance. “Like walking up your own mountain. It reaffirms our links to those landmarks. For some Māori, especially those living away from their tribal boundaries, heading home to their tūrangawaewae at the weekend promotes positive feelings, going back to reaffirm your links with your family. Being a kanohi kitea is important - having your face seen back in your tribal area.” And spirituality is a big element of Māori happiness and wellbeing. “Making opportunities to experience that sense of indigenous spirituality. So again, going back to our tūrangawaewae gives us a connection to our ancestors, our Māori gods, and opportunities to reaffirm our cultural customs.”

Is there a difference between Māori and western wellbeing and happiness?

I think the main difference is probably the strong emphasis on reaffirming and reclaiming our identity as Māori, which involves a number of cultural concepts. Our identity in terms of our iwi, our people, and those who have passed on.

Check out Dr Waiti paddle-boarding with Orca.

Getting back back to nature, Dr Waiti has found himself at the centre of some pretty intense happiness while out on Raglan Harbour.

Twice over the last few years while stand-up paddle-boarding he has found himself in the company of Orca coming in to hunt stingrays. “I was on a high for two weeks the first time it happened. I was just buzzing. I now feel like I have a close affinity to them, out in the domain of Tangaroa. For some regions in Aotearoa Orcas are their kaitiaki or spiritual guardian, so you are coming face to face with your ancestors.”

Most people spend more hours at work every day than they do with friends or family, or even sleeping. There is growth in the older workforce, with more people 75+ staying on in jobs. So if you start working when you are about 25 years old, and finish at 75, you will spend 50 years of your life at work. Dr Maree Roche is looking at how that can be a happier experience, and how to foster positive organisations and leaders.

If you’re spending your day at work thinking ‘gee I can’t wait to get home’ you’re actually wasting your life.

Dr Maree Roche.

We tend to think that our default state is happiness. But it is not that simple. Actually we are more psychologically wired for fight or flight, says Dr Roche. Our default state is the opposite of positive. Therefore to flourish at work, we have to work much harder to be positive. “There needs to be a number of changes in the workforce. Firstly, it is about enhancing the wellbeing and mindsets of workers themselves. Flourishing at work is not just about the individual - work is also a social environment. The biggest influencers are organisational leaders." According to Dr Roche it is not just about how people create their own positivity, the focus also needs to be leaders. "Not because they’re special, but because a leader's mood is contagious throughout an organisation. Leaders negative moods and bad behaviour are even more contagious, because bad is stronger than good. So, to focus on positive leadership is not about focusing on something that feels nice and special and is not important. It is actually central for the organisation that leaders themselves have the right mindset to encourage positivity throughout the organisation.”

University of Waikato - a beautiful work environment can contribute to happiness.

Research shows happy workers are 12% more productive, and there are a slew or other statics that indicate wellbeing makes a concrete difference to organisations' bottom lines. There is a business case for positivity at work, which companies and governments internationally are increasingly acknowledging. And the trickle down theory really is in action. But research shows leaders sleep less, have greater family conflict and depression, greater interactions with things like phones out of work, greater stress. Not a pretty picture if you’re the boss. But Dr Roche says leaders are generally not resourced to flourish.

Anything we do with leaders that is positive is powerful because they are providing the context and the culture in which we work.

More on Dr Roche's research

Much like the problem with the commercialisation of happiness, the concept of mindfulness gets lumped together with meditation, which is completely wrong.

Dr Roche says a lot of what she does when working with leaders is dispelling myths. “Mindfulness from a psychological perspective is about a temporal focus on the moment. Our minds are so busy, they’re always racing backward in time or forward. They run in the future and they run in the past. When they run in the past it is normally ruminating and generally not positive, so mindfulness is a focus on the present. It is really about non-judgemental present moment awareness and attention. Mounting evidences points to the range of very beneficial outcomes from mindfulness at work for people, particularly leaders.”

Positive leadership trickles down to help create a positive workforce and workplace, so Dr Roche and her colleagues asked if it also trickles up. “We looked at a theory that talks about social engagement in teams, and it’s a very power process. We found positive teams can act up, and influence leaders.”

Dr Roche has also been looking at Māori leaders and leadership, including what their key values are and how tikanga and self-determination can help create greater wellbeing. She is among the University of Waikato staff presenting research at the Positive Psychology Conference in November.

Dr Barbour and students.

Ask an artist what happiness is and a key component is likely to be taking part in the art form they love. In Theatre Studies and Dance, Associate Professor Karen Barbour is putting happiness into practice. She says in teaching dance, wellbeing is always an underlying theme. “It is inherent in the way the arts allow us to express personal and cultural identity, experience a sense of community, find our own voices and build confidence.”

In her Community Dance paper happiness and wellbeing are explicit as well as implicit. Dr Barbour and her students are quite deliberately working with themes of holistic health, inclusion and community, and respect for diversity. She says the idea also applies to people who play sport, run or walk together, and enjoy having family time together. “That’s the real joy of people moving together. And of course it stimulates your endorphins, helps balance hormones, and is a very real physiological experience. In this sense, happiness can certainly be found through dance and movement.”

What does Community Dance actually look like?

Dr Barbour says her students are encouraged to work together using their own styles to develop a final performance for assessment. They come from different movement backgrounds - some from Kapa Haka or Hula, some from street dance, some from private ballet studios, and even a K-pop performer (that’s Korean-pop, for the uninitiated). “They’re really different and they have to figure out how to work with that. There’s not going to be a performance that shows the audience they can all dance the same way. We’re trying to create something that will show our uniqueness, that will show how we value our differences.”

It is also often about students working with members of a community they are part of. Dr Barbour points to a former student and friend who now runs the Whaingaroa Youth Movement in Raglan. It involves about 80 young people of different ages, outside school time and independent of any curriculum or competition. “They get together, attend classes, contribute to build a theme, and perform annually for the community. It’s not commercially focused and it doesn’t have a syllabus, or regulations. It is a large scale community project.”

Dr Barbour also chairs a charitable trust that focuses on contemporary dance in the wider Waikato community.

For some performers the joy of dance can also be tortuous; going to extreme lengths to gain and maintain physical and aesthetic ideals. Dr Barbour says in Community Dance the process and the experience of working with other people is more important. “There are quite a lot of harrowing experiences that people have in the professional world, producing shows for audiences who never know about what has gone on behind the scenes. I care that the overall experience for dancers is positive, and does no harm.”

When Dr Barbour teaches she dances with her students, and when she talks about the subject she loves, her body has a subtle movement that complements her words. “Wellbeing is about having some kind of flow, a kind of dynamic balance for me, and dance is the best way of experiencing that. When I am feeling well, I am physically active, emotionally receptive, intellectually challenged, and spiritually aware. Moving with other people is the definition of happiness for me.”

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